In the Kitchen...

I have been spending a lot of time in the kitchen lately. It's my favorite place to be, and most definitely the best room in the house!

I ventured into the kitchen right after Valentine's Day. And I haven't been to a restaurant since! This is rare for me and Jeremy. Usually we go out to a couple restaurants a week, on his days off. But there's something much more special about cooking a meal together, then sitting down and saying grace before sampling our creations.

It all started with Alice Waters. To be exact, the book written about Alice Waters, titled Alice Waters and Chez Panisse. It's a darling book. She's a darling person. I just love her. And I want to be more like her. Because although she's a dreamer and has her head in the clouds, she's a happy success. And I cannot wait until the day I get to eat at Chez Panisse. It's been a dream of mine for about 8 years now, since I started really delving into the world of really good food.

So I was reading Alice Waters and Chez Panisse, by Thomas McNamee, and got lost in the perfectly imperfect little world that is Alice. She started Chez Panisse at 27, and celebrated the 30th anniversary just a couple years ago. She never went to culinary school nor knew how to run a restaurant. She was inspired by the Marcel Pagnol film trilogy The Fanny Trilogy about a little French town and fell in love with the characters, naming her restaurant after one of them. In Berkeley, CA. In the 70s. People seeking employment just started gravitating toward her. Artists and painters and filmmakers and writers. No food experience, they just had "it". And that "it" is what has kept Chez Panisse so grand after all these years. And that "it" is what inspired me to explore the kitchen a little more...because I want "it", too.

Jeremy had a week off from his restaurant, and we had intended on a trip to Boston, but after some expenses that came up we realized our trip wasn't plausible just yet. I had been excited about visiting my grandma in Boston, but I'm still jobless. How would that look, to go on a vacation when I'm unemployed? Instead, we spent the week in and around DC. We actually didn't venture too far from home. Days were spent exploring local farmer's markets like the Eastern Market, where we picked up some fresh greens and produce like onions, carrots, celery and potatoes. Our mission was to make our own chicken stock, adding to some stock we had already made from Cornish game hens (the bones) the night before. Nights were spent cooking, drinking great red wine, and breaking bread together at our dinner table, something we rarely get to do because of Jeremy's long hours. It was wonderful. We made lots of chicken stock, homemade chicken soup, homemade pizzas, and pastas. Each night we prepared a great big salad with organic carrots and robust red radishes and fresh arugula, a spring mix including mesclun from a Dutch farmer's market over in Laurel, MD, tomatoes and celery and cucumbers and fresh basil leaves.



Homemade pizzas! Homemade pizza dough couldn't be easier. You mix some flour and water and yeast together and a little salt, then mound it into two balls, cover and let sit for about 10 min. Then you sprinkle flour over a flat surface (we used a clean kitchen counter-top), roll the dough out into about a 13 inch circle and place on a pizza pan. Don't let it rise. Bake for 10-12 minutes, checking every now and then. I think 350 degrees. I'm going from memory here so I will have to check back when I go downstairs and check the recipe. The pre-baked pizza dough will be a little browned, which is what you want. It's a little crispy which is what I love. Then, lather with pizza sauce. I use Delgrosso sauce from my hometown in Pennsylvania. I buy jars of it every time I go up there to visit family so I always have one on hand. Jeremy and I want to learn to make our own pizza sauce. It can't be too difficult. Remember that Dutch market I told you about? Well they sell all sorts of good stuff, among which is mozzarella cheese. Not the fresh mozzarella, although that would be amazing. We bought a couple bags and paid a little more but it was worth it. It's the best mozzarella I've had in a while that wasn't fresh mozzarella. It's grated, in little bags. We used one bag per pizza. Then came the best part. Toppings! I don't know what you like on your pizza but the more the merrier for me! Jeremy got to work sauteing onions in a cast-iron pan..we LOVE cast iron; it's the best. Once you go cast-iron you don't go back! Anyway, he was sauteing the onions with some olive oil and garlic in the seasoned cast iron saute pan and I got chopping away at tomatoes, hot sopressata (another find at the Dutch market), Margherita pepperoni, black olives, and mushrooms. Jeremy had picked up some ground pork sausage at the Dutch market, and started that going. He seasoned it so well, you'd think we bought it already prepared. He truly has a gift. So after the chopping and sauteing and prepping, we were ready to top. And top we did. I've never seen a busier pizza, but all of the flavors melded perfectly. It was the best pizza ever, because (and I have to be cheesy I'm sorry) it was kneaded with love and great passion. Passion for fine cooking, the art of homemade pizza making, along with passion for each other. We took that passion to the dinner table and with some red wine and a salad, it was edible perfection.



I cannot express how lovely it was to have Jeremy with me at the dinner table each evening. We were able to pray together, holding hands across the bounty we had just prepared together. I cannot stop smiling just thinking back to that wonderful week. It's the simple things...